The Limits of Academic Freedom – Advice – The Chronicle of Higher Education

Excellent commentary on the limits of academic freedom. I tend to think of Inigo Montoya when I hear someone invoke “academic freedom.” “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” A snippet:

The practice of citing academic freedom to condone a limitless range of bad behavior has begun to take on the flavor of that hackneyed student excuse: The dog ate my paper (or, nowadays, My computer crashed). The magical incantation—”I’m protected by academic freedom”—is thought to offer instant indemnity. In reality, academic freedom, like tenure itself, is not a blanket protection.